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It would be a classic Dali: bleached carcass
limp on a branch like a wayward pancake
and a brittle bracken leaf thrown over it,
instead of melting clocks draped in a landscape
of swarming ants and a piece of Catalonia.

Would the stalking feral feline be a Kahlo
then? And the gamboling arboreal rodents
a persistent memory of an abandoned lunch
where Monet could have etched them gleaning
atop a table that has not been cleared away,

instead of his son Jean playing quietly
alone in the dappled shade where sunlight
falls and the colour sparkles? And the sodden
cat’s gravel gray fur? And the palpable tension
there? Clive Hicks-Jenkins, sipping Welsh tea,

could easily paint that in a corner of his canvas
between a raven and a firebird and let it bode
disaster for those absently unheeding squirrels.
Except that he would not. He is too gentle.
He would have those rodents dancing with the cat.